INDUSTRY INFLUENCE ON CONTENT MODERATION REGULATION: TENSIONS FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS

Resumen

As the EU Digital Services Act increasingly involves civil society organisations (CSOs) in the context of the development and application of its Code of Conduct, CSOs’ role in moderation policies requires further scrutiny. Theoretically, this paper seeks to contribute to platform governance as a complex multi-stakeholder dynamic process with unresolved tensions between different policy actors and their interests. At the European level, we can schematically understand this process to involve a triangle with three sets of actors: EU policy makers, platforms, and CSOs. We see platform governance as a terrain of struggle where no actor can unilaterally impose their will, but where power is exercised asymmetrically. Since CSOs are called upon to represent the interests of their constituencies and especially those communities that are vulnerabilised through harmful contents and current platform content policies, it is important to examine their role in the emerging EU content regulatory field more closely. In particular, this paper poses the following research questions: How do CSOs determine their policies vis-a-vis platforms? How independent are they from platforms and to what extent do they align their views with those of platforms? Empirically, the paper draws on participant ethnographic research in a leading CSO alongside in depth interviews with key informants and document analysis. The findings indicate that notwithstanding the aspirational role of CSOs in upholding fundamental rights and the rights of their constituencies, there are few safeguards against platform influence. This may end up compromising the crucial role that CSOs play in platform governance.